


my lord and my lady

by detective_terrible_detective



Category: Little Women (2019), Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, F/M, Jealousy, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Paris (City), Pining, Running Away, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22005943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detective_terrible_detective/pseuds/detective_terrible_detective
Summary: He’s decided she’s Amy, because she doesn’t look like a Beth. and Grandfather had said that Beth was the quiet one, more concerned with dolls and pianos than other people. Laurie doesn’t think that a quiet girl would be sobbing in the middle of the street~Five times Laurie loved Amy and didn’t know it and one time they both did.
Relationships: Past Theodore Laurence/Josephine March, Theodore Laurence/Amy March
Comments: 27
Kudos: 834





	my lord and my lady

1.

There’s a girl outside. She’s standing in the snow, and Laurie thinks she might be crying. Despite Brooke’s best efforts, mathematics holds no interest, so he gets up onto a chair to have a better look at the girl.

He recognises her from somewhere, and Laurie thinks she might be one of the March girls. He’s met the elder ones before, so she couldn’t be Meg or Jo. Not that he’d thought she was Jo. There was no mistaking this little blonde creature for Jo, whose laughing eyes had filled Laurie’s nights (he’d even treasured the bruises she had given him, treading on his feet as they danced). No, this is one of the younger girls, Amy or Beth.

Brooke sighs at him, closing a book in a disappointed manner. Only Brooke can convey emotion through the closing of a book. “What are you doing?” he asks. Laurie keeps staring at the girl. She’s clutching one of her hands close to her chest. “Come down. If I want to keep my job, I have to teach you things. You aren’t making it very easy for me.”

“There’s a girl,” Laurie says, looking at her. He’s decided she’s Amy, because she doesn’t look like a Beth. and Grandfather had said that Beth was the quiet one, more concerned with dolls and pianos than other people. Laurie didn’t think that a quiet girl would be sobbing in the middle of the street.

Brooke sighs again. “No, there isn’t. Come down.”

“There is. Out in the street.”

Brooke hesitates, and Laurie has won. He drags another chair beside his own and Brooke steps up, staring out the window into the street. “There is a girl.”

~

Amy March is a strange girl. Brooke goes to find things for her hand (it’s very small, the delicate fingers reminding him of a doll) and the two of them are left in the library. Laurie settles in a chair, legs sling over the armrest. Instead of sitting, Amy March wanders over to the painting and examines it.

“One day, I’m going to be a painter.”

Laurie grins. “Really?” he asks, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hand. “You’re very young to have such big dreams.”

“I’m thirteen and three months,” Amy March (he can’t think of her any other way. Somehow, plain ‘Amy’ doesn’t feel right) says proudly. “And I am going to be a painter. I’m going to be a great painter, the greatest!” she turns away abruptly, staring at the painting again.

“One day, when you’re very famous, and very rich, I’ll come find you, and you can paint me. Unless you’ve forgotten the boy who lived across the road.”

She turns away from the painting to look at him, a serious expression on her face, serious in the way only a thirteen year old can be. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget you.”

When her mother and sisters come to take her home, Laurie is sorry to see her go. But then Jo elbows him in the side and pulls a face at him and he’s swept away in her wake. But the little part of his mind that isn’t full of Jo and her words and her eyes and her hair remembers the girl standing out in the snow who’s going to paint him one day.

2.

The March household is far grimmer than usual. He’s come to collect Jo, the two of them are going skating. Jo is sitting the the foot of the table, staring daggers at Amy, who is flushed and upset. Seeing him, Jo hurries out of her seat and ushers him out the door. He barely has time to say good morning to the others.

“Why the rush?” he asks her. She grimaces, skirt flapping as she strides to the lake. He hurries after her, panting slightly at the exertion. “Are you angry?” There’s a faint call from the house and Laurie thinks she starts walking even faster.

“Yes,” Jo grits out, scowling. “Amy has done something unforgivable and I shall never speak to her again.” She takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring. “She burnt my novel!”

Jo’s novel is her pride and joy. She showed it to him once, a thick stack of paper, scrawled all over with Jo’s cramped, rushed handwriting. “Why did she do that?” There’s another shout, closer this time, and he almost turns around, but instead looks intently at Jo as she explains.

“Because she was jealous that I went to the play and she couldn’t. So she burnt my novel.”

Laurie tries to picture Amy March, furious at her older sister and hurt at being left behind. Her standing over the fireplace, dropping the pages of closely-written words in. Watching them burn. Despite the undoubted guilt of Amy March, he doesn’t think it is an act that’s provoked by mere jealousy. Jo’s temper runs hot, and things have never been smooth between the two sisters, harsh words and shouting matches, pinches in the arm and tugging of braids.

The ice is smooth and fresh, and they are both eager to begin. “Stay away from the middle,” he warns. “The ice isn’t strong there.” Grandfather used to tell him stories of people who fell through the ice and were trapped. Sometimes the current pulled them away from the hole they’d fallen through and under the solid ice. He hadn’t wanted to skate after that.

Jo races ahead and he hurries to catch her. As he does, he hears another, clearer shout from the bank. “Jo! wait!” Amy March stands there, skates in hand, watching them go. “Wait for me!” Laurie thinks that he should wait. It isn’t safe, she might go too close to the middle. But he sees Jo disappearing round a bend, steadfastly ignoring her sister. He follows her.

He waits for Amy to catch them, as they skate along. He spins and leaps, trying to impress Jo. But she only laughs at him, and tries to knock him over. He takes her hand at one point, and she slaps it away from her.

From behind them, there is the sharp crack of breaking ice. And the screaming of Amy March. As one, he and Jo turn and race towards the sound. “Grab a branch,” he calls to her. They need to be able to pull her out without getting too close themselves. He lies down, spreading his weight evenly. Jo passes him the branch.

Amy March is thrashing in the cold water, her blonde head dipping under the water for longer and longer each time. Laurie thrusts the branch at her, bracing himself to pull. Jo lies next to him, her own hands gripping it tightly.

“Amy, take the branch,” she shouts. Together, they haul her from the water. She lies on the ice, shivering and soaking wet. Jo rushes to her side, pulling her further from the thin ice. She moves to pick her up, but Laurie stops her. As small as Amy March is, she’s too heavy for Jo to carry back to the house. “You run and tell them what’s happened. I’ll take her.” When she sees her sister settled in his arms, Jo races off to the house, her running feet making deep footprints in the snow. Laurie follows her.

Even though the icy water is sleeping through his coat and turning his skin cold, he doesn’t mind. Amy March might be lying cold and pale in his arms, but she’s breathing, and for that, he’s very glad.

3.

Grandfather opens a note at breakfast. Laurie doesn’t pay much attention, Grandfather always gets notes about some important business. But then he says, in a very quiet voice that isn’t like Grandfather, “the March girl is sick.”

Jo, he thinks. But he saw Jo last night, up late writing by candlelight. Then he thinks of little Amy March, but his mind can’t form the image of her lying ill in bed. It must be meg, Laurie decides, already mentally writing the letter he will send to Brooke.

“She has scarlett fever, caught it from the paupers down the road. She was visiting them, the kind girl.”

Beth. The only one of the sisters to visit the Hummels. He feels ashamed that he forgot her, but Beth has always watched from the side of the room. He loves her, just like he loves all of them (that isn’t true, he doesn’t love them all the same. but he does love them all), but with Beth it is easy to let her slip from out of sight, and out of mind.

“They say they don’t know if she’ll survive.”

~

They are sending Amy March away to their aunt, to keep her safe from the fever. Neither Jo nor Meg can bear to be parted from Beth’s side, so Laurie accompanies her in the carriage. Her face is drawn and looks older than her fourteen years.

“Is beth going to die?” she asks, sitting primly and properly, little gloves hands folded in her lap. He can see the fear for Beth in her eyes. He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything, just stares out at the snow-topped trees. “Laurie,” she begs, “none of them will tell me anything. I’m not a child anymore. I have a right to know if Beth is going to die.”

She reminds him of Jo sometimes, full of bite. But the two of them are different. Jo is full of heat, slow-burning anger and quick flashes of rage. Amy March is all cold, icy words and scornful looks.

“Laurie. Tell me.”

He doesn’t want to lie to her. There’s no way to be certain if Beth will survive. He’s seen people die of fever before, but he’s seen people live. Laurie takes one of Amy March’s small hands in his own and looks her in the eye. “I promise you, she’s going to survive.”

4.

Italy was boring, too full of old buildings and older women. But France is full of life, wild parties every night of the week, and he is free to drink as much he pleases (and kiss as many women as he wants) without the watchful eye of Grandfather peering over his shoulder. If he thinks about Jo as he goes to sleep each night, there’s no one in France to bother him about it.

Laurie likes the parks. America should take up parks, he thinks, civilised patches of green rather than wild, uncontrollable wilderness. He likes walking in them, watching the women go by in their carriages, watching him through half-closed lashes.

He still wears Jo’s ring on his finger. His ring finger, the left hand. Sometimes, late at night, when he’s had to much to drink, or he’s particularly sad, he pretends they are husband and wife. He pretends that she loves him and she didn’t run away to new york. He pretends he loves her, because he doesn’t really, not anymore. Now he only loves the idea of loving her, the excitement that came with it.

“Laurie!”

He hears a familiar voice call his name. “Laurie!” He stops and turns to see Amy March running towards him, her skirts swishing around her ankles (she has nice feet. the nicest in the family). “Laurie, it’s me,” she cries, “Amy.”

They embrace, and he thinks about how he has missed her. “You’ve grown up,” he tells her, because Amy March is no little girl anymore. Instead, she is a woman, a beautiful woman who looks as though she belongs in Paris.

She doesn’t listen to him, instead rushing on with her news. He watches her talk, mouth curling into a smile. When her aunt calls her back into the carriage, she waves regretfully, but then she invites him to a party. Laurie watches the carriage drive away, before turning and continuing his walk through the park, still smiling.

How he has missed Amy March.

5.

It can be acknowledged that Laurie has had bad luck with proposals. Twice, he has been turned down. And each time he has run away. Once to italy (but he’s not sure if that counts, because hadn’t Jo run away too?) and now to London.

He doesn’t like London as much as Paris. The people are stiff and formal, and everywhere he looks he’s reminded of Amy March. The girl across the street has hair the same soft shade of yellow, catching sunlight in each strand. The woman seated near him at the theatre sits the same way, ankles crossed, hands folded neatly in her lap. Even the paintings in the wall remind him of her, standing there in her smock, the brush held lightly in her delicate hand.

Everyday, he dreads hearing news of Fred Vaughn and his bride-to-be. He cannot bear that Fred, the unpleasant lad that is Fred, has won the hand of a woman where Laurie failed. He has never liked Fred, not even when they were at school together. He’d been an unpleasant boy, and had grown worse as he got older.

Sometimes, he hates Amy March, for making him feel this way. After all, it is her fault. If she had accepted him, there would be no mess for him to struggle through. If she was determined to marry a man she doesn’t love, then surely Laurie is preferable to Fred Vaughn.

For most of his life, Laurie lived without concern for the consequences. He drank, danced, dallied with women, all part of this carefree existence. Now he does not drink, he cannot bear to dance. and he stays far away from women. All because of Amy March.

~

He has a letter from her one day. It sits on the silver platter, looking innocent. But the neat penmanship mocks him. Why should he be the only one in turmoil. She has caused this, why does she not suffer the same agonies.

For one brief, glorious moment he imagines seizing it and throwing it in the fire. Watching it go up in flames like the novel of long ago. But he cannot bear to burn it. So he leaves it on the silver platter, determined to ignore it.

He wakes, late at night, thinking of the letter. Laurie lights a candle and hurries down the stairs, to the library where he left it, desperate to see what she has written. But when he feels the envelope beneath his fingers, brushing the smooth strokes of ink with his fingertips, he is scared. Because he doesn’t know how he can bear it if she hates him.

With shaking hands, he slits the envelope open. A single square of paper slips out, folded once in half. It says:

Laurie,

I have turned Fred Vaughn down. Come back to Paris, please. I don’t believe we ever finished the conversation we began in my studio.

Yours always,

Amy March

Not caring that it is past 12 in the morning, he sets about arranging a ticket to France on the next ferry. London has grown boring, and there is someone waiting for him in Paris .

  * 1



“You may now kiss the bride.”

Laurie has been to many weddings. Most of them were fun, full of loud music and free-flowing wine, and dozens of pretty ladies to dance with. However, there are two that he will never forget. The first, the marriage of John Brooke to Meg March. And the second, his own marriage. to Amy March.

He had returned to Paris, and everything had fallen into place. He was sorry, she was sorry, and they were both oh so in love with each other. For the first time in many years, he didn’t fall asleep to the memories of Jo.

They had agreed to wait, to tell her family and what remained of his. But it was unbearable, worse even than those first few agonising days after Jo had turned him down. He’d never known that all he wanted in life was to be the husband of Amy March. To look at her and know, that she was his and he was hers.

So they were married, with the begrudging blessing of her Aunt March. And even though he was supposed to kiss the bride, when the priest said the words, it was Amy Marcg who leaned forward and kissed him squarely on the mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> I went to see the new little women movie (it was excellent, would highly recommend) and it reminded me how much I love laurie/amy. So, of course, I wrote this monster. 
> 
> Let me know if you enjoyed it in the comments, I love hearing from you guys.


End file.
